Getting started with Node.js modules: require, exports, imports and beyond

Modules are a key concept to understand Node.js projects. We cover Node modules: require, exports and the future import.

Node modules allow you to write reusable code. You can include your own modules into another module. Using Node Package Manager (NPM), you can publish your module to the community. Also, NPM enables you to reuse modules made by other developers using.

In this section, we are going to cover how to create Node modules and each one of its components:

Require

Exports

Module.exports

We are using Node 6+ for the examples and ES6 syntax. But the concepts are true for any version.

Require

require are used to consume modules. It allows you to include modules into your programs. You can include built-in core Node.js modules, community-based modules (node_modules) and local modules.

Let’s say we want to read a file from the filesystem. Node has a core module called ‘fs’:

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const fs = require('fs');

fs.readFile('./file.txt', 'utf-8', (err, data) => {

if(err) { throw err; }

console.log('data: ', data);

});

As you can see, we imported the “fs” module into our program. It allows us to any function attached to it, like “readFile”.

Require will look for files in the following order:

Built-in core Node.js modules (like fs)

Modules in node_modules folder.

If the module name has a ./, / or ../, it will look for the directory/file in the given path. It matches the extensions: *.js, *.json and *.node.

Exports

exports are used to create modules. It allows you to export your own objects and functions. Let’s do an example:

circle.js

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const PI = 3.14159265359;

exports.area = (radius) =>Math.pow(radius, 2) * PI;

exports.circunference = (radius) =>2 * radius * PI;

In the code below, we are exporting the area function. We defined the constant PI but this is only accessible within the module. Only the elements associated to exports are accessible outside the module.

So, we can consume it using require in another file like follows:

main.js

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const circle = require('./circle');

let r = 3;

console.log(`Circle with radius ${r} has

area: ${circle.area(r)};

circunference: ${circle.circunference(r)}`);

Noticed that this time we prefix the module name with ‘./‘. That indicates that the module is a local file.

Module Wrapper

You can think of each module as self-contained function like the following one:

Module Wrapper

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(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) {

module.exports = exports = {};

// Your module code ...

});

We have already covered exports and require. Notice the relationship between module.exports and exports. They points to the same reference. However, if you assign something directly to exports you will break its link to module.exports. More on that in the next section.

For our convenience __filename and __dirname are defined. They provide the full path to the current file and directory. The latter excludes the filename and just print out the directory path.

For instance, for our ./circle.js module, it would be something like this:

__filename: /User/adrian/code/circle.js

__dirname: /User/adrian/code

Ok, we have covered exports, require, __filename, and __dirname. The only one we haven’t cover is module. Let’s go for it!

Module.exports vs Exports

Module is not a global, it is local for each module. It contains metadata about a module, such as module id, exports, parent, children, …

exports is an alias of module.exports. So, whatever you assign to exports is also available on module.exports. However, if you assign something directly to exports, then you lose the shortcut to module.exports. E.g.

cat.js

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classCat{

makeSound() {

return'Meowww';

}

}

// exports = Cat; // It will not work

module.exports = Cat;

Try the following example with exports and then with module.exports.

main.js

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const Cat = require('./cat');

var cat = new Cat();

console.log(cat.makeSound());

To sum up, when to use module.exports vs exports:

Use exports to:

Export named function. e.g. exports.area, exports.circunference.

Use module.exports to:

If you want to export an object, class, function at the root level (e.g. module.exports = Cat

If you want to return a single object that exposes multiple assignments. e.g.module.exports = {area: area, circumference: circunference};

Imports

Imports are not available in Node as the version 6. However, it might come in future versions.

future of modules in javascript

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import circle from'./circle';

import {area, circumference} from'./circle';

You can use it today, using transpilers such as Traceur Compiler, Babel or Rollup. But, that will be for another post.

Summary

We learned about how to create Node.js modules and use it in our code. Modules allow us to reuse code easily. They provide functionality that is isolated from other modules. Required is used to load modules. Export and module exports allow defining what parts of our code we want to expose. We also explored the difference between module.exports and exports. Finally, we took a quick pick about what’s coming up for modules using imports.

Adrian Mejia is a full-stack web developer working at Cisco in Boston. Currently working at Cisco as a Software Engineer. Adrian enjoys writing books and posts about programming, technologies and nerdy stuff. Find our more here.